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iPhone as RFID Tag & Reader: Coming Soon

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:30:00 +0000

We began our Mobile Web Meets Internet of Things series yesterday with a look at barcode scanning . We wrote that smartphones are increasingly being deployed as readers for barcodes - in particular via apps available on iPhone and Android. These applications, such as RedLaser on iPhone and ShopSavvy on Android, allow you to scan a barcode on a product or object and get more information about it. We noted however that RFID tags are more functional and flexible than barcodes. While barcodes are cheaper and getting traction in the U.S. with the QR format, the potential for RFID tags is even greater. Apple knows this and if rumors are to believed, RFID will be integrated into the iPhone 4G later this year. Sponsor RWW's Mobile Web Meets Internet of Things Series: According to a number of believable blog reports , RFID is set to be a part of the as yet unannounced iPhone 4G. Apple holds a patent for a touch screen RFID tag reader and is said to be testing an RFID-enabled iPhone currently. So RFID could be a feature of the iPhone 4G as soon as Spring 2010 . As MacRumors succinctly explained in November, mobile phone usage of RFID technology will come in the form of Near Field Communication (NFC). NFC is a new standard based on RFID and it has three use cases: the phone as an RFID tag; the phone as RFID Reader; and peer to peer communication (P2P) between two NFC-enabled phones. The first two use cases are most interesting. Using the iPhone as an RFID tag means it can be a deployed as a payment device (similar to a credit card), identity card, security device, and more. This type of functionality is already happening in Japan, where the RFID Suica chip is installed in some mobile phones. Using the phone as an RFID Reader allows the iPhone to interact with RFID-enabled objects in the real world. Check out this prototype from a Norwegian research organization called Touch, using the iPhone as a Media Player: Timo Arnall from Touch noted in a follow-up post in November that RFID and NFC peripherals are beginning to be released for the iPhone. 2010 could be a great year for RFID in the consumer market, if it is to be a feature of the next iPhone. Expect to see it in Android devices too. Will mobile phones provide the tipping point for adoption of the Internet of Things? We've seen now that mobile phones are a big driver of consumer adoption of both barcodes and RFID tags, so we wouldn't be surprised. Discuss

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iPhone as RFID Tag & Reader: Coming Soon

Mobile Web Meets Internet of Things: Barcode Scanning

cgseo — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Two of the biggest trends we tracked last year were Mobile Web and Internet of Things . In a new series on ReadWriteWeb, which we're calling Mobile Web Meets Internet of Things , we'll explore how these two important trends are converging and look at some cutting edge example products. We start with barcode scanning... Internet of Things is when everyday objects become connected to the Internet, via technologies such as RFID tags, sensors and barcodes. One trend we saw expanding in 2008-09 was mobile phones being deployed as readers for barcodes . Sponsor Increasingly, smartphones such as the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android devices offer applications that allow you to scan a barcode on a product or object and get more information about it. The Technology Barcodes are similar to RFID tags, in that they both hold data. RFID tags are generally more functional and flexible than barcodes . Also RFID tags can be read/write, whereas barcodes cannot. However the big advantage for barcodes is that they're cheaper, therefore we're more likely to see scanning as a consumer activity ramp up in the U.S. via barcodes. The most popular form of 2D barcode is the QR Code (the QR stands for "Quick Response"), which became popular in Japan and is now gaining traction in the U.S. and other markets. The Products In a series of posts written over September 2008, Sarah Perez analyzed the then burgeoning " scannable world ." As Sarah explained, barcode scanning is not a new technology on the Web. One of the first examples was :CueCat , a cat-shaped barcode reader from the late 1990s. It linked a user to a website by scanning a barcode in an article or other printed matter. CueCat never took off because it required a separate piece of hardware, but now in 2010 smartphones are the hardware . There's also no shortage of software circa 2010, such as ScanLife and the NeoReader app described in Part 2 of Sarah's Scannable World series . A variety of other barcode reading apps are listed in Part 3 of that series. There are a variety of use cases for barcodes on the Web. They include Semapedia.org (a non-profit project that aims to augment the physical world with Wikipedia data), QRContact (contact management via barcodes), and barcode wearables such as p8tch ("Think of it as a TinyURL you can wear"). But none of these is likely to become widely used in the mainstream, at least in the near future. What Will be The Tipping Point? In Japan, barcode scanning is already a popular activity thanks to the culture of using mobile phones for just about everything. In the U.S., where the Mobile Web took longer to ramp up, barcodes are yet to catch on. However there's one market where barcode scanning could become a mainstream activity in the U.S. and other countries. No, not magazine publishing - although there are valid advertising use cases there. We're talking about scanning retail products using your mobile phone . By the end of 2009, a lot of barcode scanning apps had gained popularity in the iPhone and Android, in particular. In November we listed our picks for scanning and other mobile shopping apps to test over Black Friday. There is no clear winner yet in the shopping scanning market, but here are some applications you may want to try: RedLaser (iPhone app getting rave reviews ) ShopSavvy (popular on Android) The Amazon Mobile app ; see also SnapTell , owned by Amazon StoreXperience CardStar pic2shop Point Inside ( good review on CNET ) CompareEverywhere (Android) ZXing Barcode Reader (Android) Thanks to followers of @rww on Twitter , who suggested some of those. Will Consumers Adopt Barcode Scanning? As well as adoption by retailers, another big question is: will consumers want to interact with real world products using their mobile phones? I suspect they will, once they begin to see compelling reasons for doing so - which will probably involve getting the best deals and being able to do advanced shopping comparison very easily. Finally, it's worth noting that Google is active in barcodes . Google's Favorite Places program allows local businesses to put a sticker on their products which features Google's logo, a scannable barcode and a message reading "We're a favorite place on Google." Barcode scanning and its applications will grow during 2010, meaning more and more real world data will be connected to the Internet and accessed on your mobile phone. There are many apps trying to entice consumers to wave their mobile phone in front of products, so let us know your favorites in the comments. Image credits: clevercupcakes ; Stan ; ScanLife Discuss

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Mobile Web Meets Internet of Things: Barcode Scanning

How the Cathedral and the Bazaar Is Shaping the Future of Comics

admin — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 01:22:00 +0000

Today's startups, entrepreneurs and investors live and die by what seem like a series of holy proverbs. "Release early, release often" is perhaps one of the most poignant phrases when considering product launch and feature scope. On this cold Saturday, we're paying homage to the origins of the concept by recognizing one of the seminal works in programming philosophy, and looking at a recent startup that's taken it to heart. Sponsor In the late nineties Eric S. Raymond presented The Cathedral and the Bazaar convincing Netscape to publish open source code. The work's premises "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" and "release early, release often" were meant to justify early releases and crowdsourcing community feedback. While his work originally made a case for open source releases, it has gone on to inspire many outside of the open source realm. Lead by Micah Baldwin, TechStars' comic platform Graphic.ly is launching its beta version under the "release early, release often" tenet. Said Baldwin in a recent blog post , "If we are truly going to get the community involved, we need them involved early and often. We need them now." ReadWriteWeb first covered the mobile comic platform in November under its original name, TakeComics . Since then the company has rebranded as Graphic.ly, announced raising a little over a million dollars from Starz Media and appointed Baldwin as CEO. As a serial entrepreneur, Baldwin rationalizes his company's early release saying, "So many young entrepreneurs get stuck in the 'What if' world and try to release the perfect app. At Graphic.ly, we just released our Baby Beta, which frankly sucked. Badly. But we are getting amazing feedback, and its clear that it will be such a better product in the long term." Baldwin is using a combination of GetSatisfaction and Zendesk to manage early-stage feedback. Graphic.ly is also looking to adapt products like Google Moderator for proactive feedback in order to engage community members in the engineering and product discussions. When asked about possible outcomes for the release, Baldwin replied, "The worst case scenario is that we don't engage our community properly and lose their trust. There is nothing more dire than lost trust. The best case is that everyone who uses Graphic.ly sees their fingerprints all over it and shows it to their friends proudly, saying 'I built that. That's something I did.'" The service's first batch of invites got out tonight, to register for the service fill out the form here . Discuss

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How the Cathedral and the Bazaar Is Shaping the Future of Comics

Open Thread: Should Tech Get a Turn-Off?

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 03:55:00 +0000

Being a technology blogger is like having a license for an around-the-clock gadget and Web addiction. No one expects you to leave your house during the day. You're allowed to spend the majority of your life in front of a glowing screen, and flipping out over WiFi issues is par for the course. And you're never far from the Web, since your mobile is always in hand when you have to leave your laptop behind for some incomprehensible reason. But even with such a license in hand, I have to make a case for periodically disconnecting. What do you think? Sponsor More and more, I am trying to set aside unplugged hours and even days for Internet-free, mobile-free, "Luddite time." Time for asking a stranger for directions, time for talking to the people you're with rather than the people you "follow," time for interacting with the world around you in ways that don't include clicking, scrolling or downloading. Time that's increasingly being destroyed by smart phones, "super" phones and what ever "super duper" devices are in the pipeline. Sitting in front of these glowing screens (as most of us do) for around eight hours a day for work and additional hours for leisure can't be good for us as living, breathing organisms. Have you ever spent the whole day absorbed in the web - the rabbit holes of YouTube, the breadcrumb trails of Wikipedia, the party line of Twitter and the bottomless virtual library of blog posts - to find yourself startled by actual human interaction, in a strange and unrestul intellectual state. With enough consecutive days of online-only living, you might realize you're making more connections between online entities and content, but you're losing opportunities to have fresh, original thought or observations about your own world. I'm not saying that the Internet makes you stupid. I am saying that, if left to run wild across the vast territories of the Web, your mind can turn into a laboratory hamster, frantically pulling levers and running in wheels while his environment remains essentially static and his motivations essentially artificial. Another detriment to a constantly wired life is that you're not truly present with the folks around you every day, and you begin to forget how polite, normal people communicate. You become too easily distracted by notifications from your mobile, glazing over and tuning out to parse your RSS feeds while real conversations are going on without you. And being accustomed to ignoring your surroundings in favor of your online life numbs you to the fact that often, your friends are doing the same to you. If you've ever sat through a dinner with your significant other or a group of geek friends as you all happily tapped away on your mobiles, you know this is true. And while being able to buck conventional table manners and geek out together is a wonderful thing, aren't you cheating yourself out of valuable face-to-face interaction by doing so? And very often, an preoccupation with the Web leads to a total loss of perspective. If you have ever stayed awake until 2 or 3 in the morning entrenched in a furious debate on Scoble's FriendFeed over something that the entire world had completely forgotten 12 hours later (guilty!), you have definitely lost perspective. Not typically the most empathetic people, we begin to give more attention and emotion to minor tech events (Google Wave, anyone?) than to major world events. If it didn't trend on Twitter and hit Digg's front page, we tend to not notice or care. Although the social web can occasionally be used as a power for good, notably through efforts such as those carried out during the Iranian election/debacle or on World Aids Day, this circle is notoriously self-obsessed and navel-gazing to the obfuscation of much more important matters. Finally, being constantly online is probably fairly bad for your health. A few of the people I've spoken to tonight tell me that to distract themselves from Internet obsessions, they turn to physical activity, such as gym workouts, yoga or running. These dear souls are escaping the sedentary lifestyle to which we've all grown fairly accustomed and which most certainly has negative effects on how we look, how we feel, our metabolism and energy level and so much more. And although mobile and AR technologies are making it easier for us to get out and about while still connected, more often they act as a tether to larger, more stationary devices. I personally want to spend many hours in 2010 offline and off my mobile. I want to do things like watch an old movie, go for a walk, have a dinner date or read an honest-to-god newspaper without checking in on Foursquare or posting an "overheard" on Twitter. Maybe it's a sign that I'm aging. Many of my contemporaries say their sole offline time is sleeping. I've certainly lived that way, too, and I spend many days now online for 14-18 hours. But I don't want every day to be like that. What about you, dear readers? Do you currently plan for and enforce offline hours for yourself, your significant other or your family? If so, how and when do you take your breaks? Or are you a tireless defender of the Internet junkie lifestyle? Most importantly, what do you see as the explicit benefits or detriments of being online around the clock - or of taking periodic furloughs? Let us know your opinions and best practices in the comments. Discuss

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Open Thread: Should Tech Get a Turn-Off?

"Smart Phone" is a Misnomer: It’s a Computer, not a Phone

cgseo — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:33:06 +0000

The smart phone is not a phone. It's a computer. It's like your desktop or laptop. It stores data. It connects to the Internet. It runs applications. It's a computer, not a phone. The real challenge for the enterprise is to shift its thinking about how it will move beyond the carriers and one day become an entirely data-centric organization - an organization that gives information workers the ability to work entirely on an IP infrastructure, be it for Web-based productivity applications or on a VoiP network. Forrester Research issued a report today that calls 2010 the year of the smart phone. That seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? To its credit, Forrester does use the report as an opportunity to explore how the enterprise can make the smart phone a part of the daily work life for as many employees as possible. Sponsor There are many reasons for the enterprise to adopt a smart phone culture: There is no excuse anymore. Workers have to be connected. The big weave on the social Web is getting richer. Billions of threads are being added by the day. How can we even tolerate not being connected? Collaboration depends on being connected. You can't be fully connected without a decent smart phone strategy. People are not working at the office as much anymore. They need a smart phone to keep up with their work. As illustrated by Forrester, the trend is already in play: It does not have to be that expensive to adopt a smart phone culture. People want to use their smart phones for both their personal lives and work, too. They will pay for their data plans. Forrester agrees. From the executive summary by Ted Schadler: "Employees, aka consumers, are mad about smartphones, attracted by the ability to email, collaborate, and work with documents from anywhere. Fourteen percent of information workers across the US, Canada, and UK already use smartphones to do work today, and another 64% would like to. That demand, coupled with the willingness of some employees to share the cost of a monthly mobile plan, sets the stage for a surge in the use of personal smartphones for information work. Information and knowledge management professionals should immediately call for a formal bring-your-own (BYO) smartphone strategy, establish a sliding scale for when to reimburse employees, and pressure mobile carriers to cut costs across corporate-liable and personally liable plans." Forrester's BYO recommendation makes sense. But he does not explore how smart phones can be treated as computers. This discussion can create a new level of discourse in the enterprise between IT and business users. Forrester points out that IT recognizes the importance of smart phones. Many companies are already developing policies for how the devices should be treated. Collaboration tool are not being heavily used but this could change if smart phones were treated as tools as much as communication devices. MobileIron follows this approach, offering services that give IT managers the ability to be more like change agents than police forces. In MobileIron's view , information can be tracked with a data-centric approach. Applications can be monitored. Users and administrators can view a social graph that shows usage. That's a smart approach. It stimulates thinking and moves people to start exploring how a fully data-centric approach can be adopted over time as VoiP matures in the enterprise. Discuss

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"Smart Phone" is a Misnomer: It's a Computer, not a Phone

How The Web is Transforming Personal Finance

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:12:27 +0000

Not too long ago, personal finance tools like Quicken and Microsoft Money used to be bound to the desktop. Exchanging information with your banks used to be a hassle. Keeping track of credit card purchases was often a question of waiting for statements to arrive by mail and then entering data by hand. Today, free tools like Mint , moneyStrands and Wesabe make it easy to track all of this information. Thanks to this, you can now get a better overview of your personal finances than ever before. Sponsor Editor's note : This story is part of ReadWriteWeb's Personal Finance series, a weekly, three-month-long look at how the Internet has transformed personal finance. Up until April 15, which is the deadline for U.S. readers to file their taxes, we'll be looking at how personal finance has evolved, analyzing top web tools and posting video of our conversations with the people who are shaping the online world of personal finance. If you are interested in sponsoring the rest of this Content Series on Personal Finance, please contact our COO Sean Ammirati . Mint: Leading the Charge Currently, the two most well-known online tools for personal finance management are arguably Mint and Intuit's Quicken Online . Mint stood out from the pack early on because the company made it extremely easy to keep track of all your expenses. After giving Mint access to your bank and credit card account, the service simply downloads your financial information at regular intervals and organizes it. Mint can even track your 401(k) for you. Mint launched in September 2007 and quickly became the darling of the Web 2.0 world. Unlike most of its desktop-bound competitors, Mint managed to talk to virtually every bank and credit card issuer from day one. In October 2008, Mint came out of beta . Today, the company has more than 1.7 million registered users and sees roughly 700,000 active users every month. In October 2009, the company was signing up 30,000 new users per week. Mint's success didn't go unnoticed by the incumbent market leaders and Intuit acquired Mint in October 2009. In November 2009, Intuit announced that it would begin to phase out Quicken Online in favor of Mint. Microsoft suspended sales of Microsoft Money on June 30, 2009 and doesn't plan to compete in the market anymore . Correction : In December, Microsoft actually announced a plan to enter the personal finance market again with a Mint-like tool it is developing in collaboration with Citi. Beyond Mint While Mint gets most of the mindshare on the web these days, it's by no means the only player in this market. Indeed, the success of Mint has given rise to a plethora of similar tools and legitimizes the efforts of companies that tried to enter this market before Mint. ClearCheckbook.com , for example, launched in May 2006. The company focuses on bringing checkbook management online. A number of other tools are competing more directly with Mint. Wesabe , for example, also focuses on giving users an overview of how they spend their money. Sadly, Wesabe makes downloading your information from your checking and credit card accounts a bit more difficult than Mint. Since acquiring Exepnsr , Strands now also offers its own personal finance tool for setting up and tracking personal budgets and staying on top of your finances. Geezeo - which was founded in 2006, and also looks a lot like Mint, has a very strong focus on budgeting. Most of these tools focus on the U.S. market, but more and more of them are also now available outside of the United States. Kublax , for example, offers a Mint-like service in the U.K. Going Mobile Just like almost every other category of online tools, personal finance tools are also making the move to mobile. Mint and Wesabe , for example, offer both an iPhone app and mobile-optimized websites. Most importantly, all of these services are also able to send out alerts to your phone - either through push alerts on the iPhone or as text messages. Whenever you run the risk of exceeding your credit card limit, for example, these services will send you an alert. Of course, a number of banks have also gotten into this game and now offer their own mobile apps. The Bank of America , Chase Mobile and Wells Fargo apps are currently among the top 10 most downloaded free finance iPhone apps, for example. When it comes to paying your bills, apps like BillMinder and BillTracker make it easy to never forget when a bill is due. What's Next? Over the last few years, the web has clearly transformed the way we use personal finance software. Over the next few months, we will have a closer look at the current generation of personal budgeting and finance tools on the web. We will also analyze the current trends around online finance software. This is the first post in our upcoming series about personal finance. If you are interested in sponsoring the rest of this Content Series on Personal Finance, please contact our COO Sean Ammirati . Discuss

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How The Web is Transforming Personal Finance

One More Thing: Multitouch on Nexus One Is Just a Hack Away (VIDEO)

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:22:12 +0000

The only thing preventing Google's Nexus One phone from supporting multitouch features might be Apple's patents . Allow me to explain: There is nothing in the hardware of this device to prevent multitouch as evinced by Google's comment this morning at their press conference. When asked if the Nexus One would one day support multitouch, a Google rep responded, "We'll consider it." In a word, this means that the hardware is ready for users' pinching and zooming, but the current iteration of Google's software is locked to prohibit multitouch for legal reasons. We give the hackers of the mobile world a couple days to hack the device - after all, it's already been done on the Droid. Sponsor Here's a video showing multitouch on a Droid: And here's how that was accomplished. European hackers figured out how to jailbreak the device a scant month after its release. In the States,the folks at AllDroid sussed out how to port the web browser from the Motorola Milestone - which does support multitouch - over to the Droid. Granted, the hack only works for web browsers, but it's a significant improvement for those who can live with a bricked phone. The hack requires the would-be multitouch hero to get root access to the phone and install and delete certain components. Clearly, this user runs the risk of breaking the device and may violate Motorola's TOS and void the warranty. All of the above applies to the Droid. However, the same stipulations that prevent multitouch on that device also apply to the Nexus One: It's not a hardware issue; the software is simply locked. So, we're likely looking at a wait of a few days to see who wants to risk a $500+ device in the quest for an Android-powered multitouch mobile via TOS-violating hacks. Apple's involvement with the stalling or prevention of more and better multitouch devices has been a topic of speculation in the mobile gadget press since last year, when a group of several key patents for specific gestures were published. Since then, several multitouch devices, such as Palm's Pre, have been released without legal fanfare. Still, some speculate that Google's holding out on multitouch for legal reasons. "I think at this point that's more of a legal consideration than a technical one, since many phones that run Android have the capability of supporting multitouch on a hardware level," wrote Jason Chen of Gizmodo when he toyed with the device last month. And Chris Ziegler of Engadget said , "This is still very much a sensitive subject - but at least we have some confirmation that it's a software limitation alone... there's definitely some logic (probably legal logic, but logic nonetheless) behind which devices are getting it in which markets." What do you think - is this a patent issue? Or is the software simply not ready for public consumption yet? Better yet, if you had one of these devices, would you jailbreak it for multitouch capabilities? Let us know in the comments. Discuss

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One More Thing: Multitouch on Nexus One Is Just a Hack Away (VIDEO)

Live Blog: Google’s Android Press Gathering

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:55:15 +0000

Google is holding a press event to showcase the new Nexus One and possibly some other mobile innovations today. We already know quite a few details about the phone itself, but hopefully Google will also have a few surprises up its sleeve. The press conference should get under way at 10am PST and we will live blog the event here. Sponsor We will post updates as they happen. Keep reloading this page to see the latest news. 10:00am As usual, the event is running a bit late. 10:06am Getting started. VP of Product Development takes the stage to talk about the Open Handset Alliance. "We will unveil the next generation of the evolution of Android today." 13 new members will join the OHC - including: NEC, China Telecom and Freescale. Recapping the history of Android hardware (G1, myTouch, Droid) 10:10pm "A year ago we had 1 device, now we have 20 devices on 59 carriers." Google wants to prevent fragmentation - talking about compatibility test suite. "Android today is about getting more users onto the mobile web." Android users search the web over 30x more on Android than on feature phones. From the beginning, Android was always about being developer friendly. Talking about being able to multi-task (a subtle swipe at the iPhone?) The Next Step in the Android Evolution 10:15am "We are only in the early stages of the evolution of Android. Volume and variety of Android devices has exceeded Google's expectations. "But we want to do more. Wants to work closer with hardware partners to showcase the software. Announcing the Nexus One "Where Web Meets Phone" 10:18am Google calls this a new category of phones: "super-phones." On stage now: Peter Chou, CEO of HTC. Talking up the Nexus One: "The Nexus One is one of the best designs from HTC." Outstanding display, fast processor. "It pushes the limits of what is possible on a mobile phone today." Chou leaves the stage after posing with the phone... 10:22am In depth look at Nexus One Erik Tseng takes the stage to demo the phone. Hardware : 3.7 inch AMOLED display - WVGA. "Deep contrast and brilliant colours." 1 GHz processor - fast processor = less slowdowns. Trackball works as notifications tool. Will pulse when you get new messages. 130 grams - 11.5mm thick Sensors : light sensor, proximity sensor. 5 megapixel camera New for Android: active noise cancellation - using two microphones. 10:29am Google will offer custom engraving (just like the iPhone...) "With this hardware, we think we have half of the story. It's the combination of hardware and software that makes this such a great phone." No surprise: Nexus One will come with Android 2.1 10:31am New features in 2.1: Customization More homescreen panels - more widgets Example: weather widget: knows where you are from GPS Google expects to see more widgets from 3rd-party developers Showing live wallpapers. 10:35 3D capabilities of the Nexus One and Android 2.1 App launcher: new twist - 3D scroll-wheel - icons sit on a 3D wheel instead of a flat page New photo gallery - written with CoolIris Everything scrolls smoothly - quite impressive. Looks just like CoolIris on the desktop. Features background sync with Picasa Web Albums 10:39am Voice Commands In 2.0: Voice queries ("directions to nearest Ikea") In 2.1: Every text field is now voice-enabled Voice recognition learns every time you speak a query 10:42am Sneak peek at Google Earth for Android Also voice-enabled. Clearly making good use of the fast processor. Everything scrolls very smoothly. Buying the Phone: Google Hosted Web Store 10:45am How to buy the phone? Google will sell the phone in its own web store Keeping it simple: buy phone without service ($529) - or with service from partners (T-Mobile $179) For now, T-Mobile only. But: "Expect to add more carriers and hardware in the future." Verizon Wireless and Vodofone will join the program. Web Store 10:49am Demoing the store. Purchasing all done in the store - no need to go to the physical store 10:54am Recap First phone of a series of phone - more operators, devices and countries coming in the future Showing demo video right now Q&A 11:00am Question : Why only such a small amount of space for app storage? Answer : soon, you will be able to store apps on SD cards Question : Will it ship today? Answer : Yes. Question : Is this an iPhone killer? Answer : Choice is a good thing. Question : Whose inventory will the phone come from? What will you do to make the App Store more well-known? Answer : Unlocked phone comes from Google. Regarding the Android Market: Marketing for Nexus One and new Web Store will be essentially online. Focused on making the store better. Question : Why was it necessary for Google to design the phone? Why not just have an HTC phone that runs Android? Answer : Google didn't design the phone - HTC did. Google is just the retailer and worked mostly on the software. Question : What would convinces somebody to buy a $530 phone? Answer : That's choice at work. "This is the early stages of a longer journey." Question : Google isn't known for being a retailer. Answer : "We shouldn't focus on retailing." Google wants to offer a complete solution and give consumers choice. Retail part is very important but just another channel - not a channel that will replace other channels. Question : What's the revenue opportunity for Google? Answer : These super-phones are great for accessing the Internet and that's where out business is. Hardware sales are not the big deal - just wants to get more people on the mobile web. "If you want the best possible Google experience you come to the store and get the device." Question : Will it support tethering? Answer : In future versions. Not a strategic issue but just something Google needs to implement. Question : Is the physical keyboard dead? Will Google start to sell more products online? Answer (from HTC): We offer lots of different phones and people can choose what best fits for them. This design is focused on the form-factor and screen. HTC offers other devices for "keyboard-lovers". From Google: The new voice input works very well and Google will soon offer other devices as well. Question : Will other counties support multi-touch on the Nexus One? Answer : It's a software thing. "We'll consider it." Question : When will Google Voice launch publicly? What about the other phones that are coming soon? Will something awesomer come next month? Answer : Other manufacturers will add more devices. "If you need a great phone today - the Nexus is a great phone." (Nothing about Google Voice in the answer). Question : Google wants to do revolutionary stuff? What's revolutionary about this phone? Why does Google get behind this phone if it's pretty average? What not revolutionize the pricing structure with an ad-supported phone? Answer : This is a baby step. Let's get the store going and then we can see what comes up in the future. Question : Will people be able to check out the phone in retail store? Answer : We want this to remain pure and simple. Marketing this online-only and selling online-only. Question : What's the difference between a super-phone and a regular smartphone? Answer : The big differentiator is the openness of the app store. This is as powerful as your laptop was a year ago. Question : Question for Motorola: Will the Nexus One cannibalize sales of the Droid? Answer : We try to deliver the best products we can. Will upgrade software on the Droid. Question : Why does Google feel the need to change the way phones are bought? What's broken about the current system? Answer : We are trying to optimize efficiencies. Just like web store revolutionized the way you buy a camera, Google wants to do the same thing for phones. After there are enough phones out there, you can experience it through using somebody else's. Marketing just increases prices. Sidenote about partners : We would love to sell for Verizon and Vodafone right now - just have to integrate the IT. Question : What can users expect in terms of software upgrades? Users never really know what phone will get the upgrade Answer : HTC wants to upgrade all of its phones (nothing specific). Google argues that some phones simply don't have the hardware capabilities for the upgrade. The intention is to make sure everybody gets some kind of future-proof hardware that can get upgrades for a certain amount of time. From Motorola : Intention to upgrade the device to the best software that the hardware can run. Not every device supports the 3D capabilities of Android 2.1, for example. Backward compatibility slows down innovation. Questions : Will Verizon get unlocked phones? Answer : Unlocked phones are a problem with CDMA phones. Will only be sold with Verizon plan. Question : Will you port Google Voice to the iPhone or will you suppress this to give Android an advantage? Answer : Google Voice team isn't opposed to having its app run on other platforms. Question : Didn't Google say it won't do a phone? Answer : We don't do hardware. 11:43am: And that wraps up today's live blog. Thanks for reading! Discuss

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Live Blog: Google's Android Press Gathering

Droid’s December Boom: AdMob Metrics Show Android Platform’s Growth

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:59:15 +0000

The Android platform has grown exponentially since mid-2009, but December's stats show a particular factor that might help catapult the platform to greater heights of user adoption. In figures just released from mobile advertising company AdMob, the Droid singlehandedly boosted calls to their network by nearly 300 million requests while stats for HTC Magic devices remained static and those for HTC's Dream model actually decreased. In terms of consumer use of the network and acceleration of device popularity, it seems we have a winner. Sponsor Having been compared extensively with the iPhone, the Droid stands up solidly even under extensive scrutiny . And in terms of 3G network access, we've personally seen fewer issues than with any other mobile carrier we've tried to date. (Note: I'm a Droid owner and a former iPhone user. I've also suffered through my share of BlackBerries, Palms and their ilk.) If any device is to become the iPhone killer, it will be the Droid or something very close to it (here's looking at you, Nexus One). AdMob's numbers show that requests from all Android-driven devices increased by 97 percent between October to December in 2009, totaling more than 1 billion requests in December alone. The open platform has also seen a refreshing diversity of devices and manufacturers. AdMob shows that in December, 56 percent of requests were from HTC devices, 39 percent were from Motorola devices and 5 percent were manufactured by from Samsung. And in December, seven devices generated more than three percent of requests each: the Motorola Droid, HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ, HTC Droid Eris and the Samsung Moment. This stat represents a significant increase from just three devices in October (HTC Dream, HTC Magic, and HTC Hero). Already, the Motorola Droid is the leading Android device on AdMob's radar, generating a third of all the network's requests in December. Released just under two months ago, it's already the top-selling Android device on the market, a title it's held since a scant fortnight after its launch . Granted, AdMob's metrics show a small slice of mobile device usage. But they've consistently been reliable in showing what mobile users use and need and in predicting trends. We are internally excited about what Android-powered devices will do in the market in the months to come, and I am personally quite optimistic about Droid adoption specifically. Let us know what you think in the comments, particularly if you're a fanboy or fangirl of a particular device! Discuss

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Droid's December Boom: AdMob Metrics Show Android Platform's Growth

ComScore Ups the Ante in Mobile Analytics

cgseo — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:01:00 +0000

ComScore , a leading Web statistics provider, has joined with Flurry Analytics to provide a more complete picture on the who, what, when, where and how of our use of mobile media. Founded just over a year ago, Flurry has grown immensely and this move will only serve to boost its popularity. Flurry announced the partnership on the heels of its merger with Pinch Media last month. The service boasts a nearly ubiquitous presence in the mobile market and will add a host of real-time data to comScore's reports. Sponsor Flurry collects mobile application data from approximately two out of every three iPhone and Android devices. Each month, the company aggregates application usage data from over 1 billion end-user sessions across more than 50 million unique handsets from more than 200 countries. Over 10,000 developers have chosen to integrate Flurry Analytics within their applications. That's 9,700 developers more than the company started with just a year ago. Using Flurry's data, comScore will add "real-time consumption data, including frequency of use, length of use, user geographic location, new vs. repeat usage and Wi-Fi vs. carrier network usage" to its mobile application data. Flurry provides a variety of information including what types of applications users are most likely to continue using over time and return to frequently, as shown in the following graphic. This data can then be used by companies to lure potential advertisers or by advertisers looking for potential targets. In a market that's only going to see growth, some, like Om Malik, are already predicting Flurry's acquisition by a big-time player in the near future. Analytics remains hot, as evidenced further by this morning's news of a $27.5 million investment in comScore-competitor Quantcast by Cisco and Polaris Ventures . Discuss

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ComScore Ups the Ante in Mobile Analytics